Stay with me here. This is a milk-based cocktail that may require a bit of bravado to try…but I promise, if you have the chops, you’ll love it. This is a great brunch cocktail and is quite popular in the great state of Texas. A great drink for any season besides summer (who drinks milk when it’s hot?). I like this one in the early evening when it’s cool outside but you can still enjoy the weather. The smoky sweetness of bourbon combined with the sugar sweetness of the leche is quite a unique cocktail experience that coats as it soothes. It works wonderfully with comfort foods. Build strong bones while knockin’ ‘em back.

Here we go –

• 1 ½ oz bourbon
• 1 tsp fine granulated sugar
• 6 oz milk

Add above ingredients in a shaker with plenty of cracked ice. Shake till frothy and icy cold then pour everything into a highball glass, dust with nutmeg and get ready for a wonderful surprise.

On May 1st, 2010, know what you’re doing behind the bar. Beyond cliché’, I truly feel that having a Mint Julep and watching the Kentucky Derby is one of life’s affordable luxuries that you’d be foolish not to partake in. With such a minimum of effort, you can entertain in the home and, depending on the horses, make a great May Saturday afternoon. Even just sitting around a kitchen table watching the Derby on a tiny television set can be loads of fun as long as it’s accompanied by an ice frosted glass thick with crushed ice, bourbon and crushed mint. It’s not a 3 hour party you’re committing to, it’s a one hour race complete with the pre-race show and 2 Mint Juleps per person, tops. When made properly, this drink sings. You will love it, I promise.

Here we go –

• 2 ½ oz bourbon
• 8 sprigs of mint
• 1 tsp of sugar
• Crushed (almost to the point of powder) ice.

Get an ice crushing machine or a good blender set to crush ice and prepare enough for two fat old-fashioned glasses. Before you add ice to glass, muddle 8 sprigs of mint with teaspoon+ of sugar, till pasty in the bottom of the glass. Fill the mint and sugared glasses with ice to the rim and then pour your bourbon over top. Stir with short straw till drink is mixed. If we have as good a race as we did last year, you’ll remember the drink till next Derby.

So, the Rhode Islanders like their bourbon. The Brown University cocktail may be the most interesting and familiar of the Ivy League bunch. Basically a half and half manhattan, the Brown had to be a mainstay of the raccoon coat-wearing, gold-fish swallowing, roaring twenties-loving Brown undergrads. No garnish mentioned in the old recipe I found but a cherry seems natural.

Here we go –

• 1 ½ ounces bourbon
• 1 ½ ounces sweet vermouth
• 2-3 dashes of orange bitters

Shake everything with ice ‘til cold. Serve up in a cocktail glass. Cherry garnish optional.

You always need a drink or two in your arsenal that you can pull out for folks who just don’t like the strong taste and flavor of booze. The same friends who drink cosmos, screwdrivers, and white wine will love the Trolley. It’s about as threatening, flavor wise, as a warm breeze yet, the bourbon will keep you in the pool too.

Here we go –

• 2 oz Bourbon
• Equal parts Cranberry and Pineapple Juice

Fill a tall glass with ice add bourbon. Fill to top with equal parts cranberry & pineapple juice, stir.

Bourbon and cherry do make a nice duo. If you like Manhattans than I suggest you try this one. The punch you loose with the absence of sweet vermouth, you substitute in this drink with cherry liqueur. You can’t drink a lot of them, but one or two before heading out to dinner or to sip after dinner, you’ll find this cocktail’s perfect.

Here we go –

• 1 oz Bourbon
• ¾ oz Cherry Liqueur
• 1 tsp. Lemon Juice

Serve over lots of ice in a rocks glass, garnish with a cherry.

I read this recipe in my local paper and immediately dropped what I was doing and whipped one up. It was love at first sip. I finished the drink in seconds, made the coffee, woke my wife up, poured my cereal and got dressed. A take on the classic Mint Julep, this peach version celebrates the short seasoned fruit in grand style. You’ll need fresh mint and ripe peaches so prepare a day or two ahead of time for this drink.

Here we go –

• 2 ripe peach slices
• 2 ½ oz Bourbon
• ½ oz ginger syrup *
• 8-10 mint leaves
• crushed ice

Combine bourbon, syrup, mint and peaches in a mixing cup or glass. Muddle gently, crushing the peaches and bruising the mint leaves. Let mixture sit for 3 minutes. Pack an old-fashioned or hi-ball glass with crushed ice. Pour the contents of the mixing glass through a strainer into the glass. Add straw and a sprig of mint as garnish.

* To make Ginger Simple Syrup, boil two cups of sugar with 2 cups of water. Stir while boiling ‘til clear. Add the grated flesh of a peeled ginger root to mixture as it boils. Let cool to room temperature then strain, leaving only the fluid (no ginger chunks). Bottle and store in the fridge up to a month.

Just an easy-to-pour classic that will satisfy anyone’s Bourbon-Tooth. I like this one alot. Basically, a bourbon and ginger with the bite of bitters and a slight citrus finish brought on by the oils released from the lemon peel. A nice drink for late afternoon, early evening.

Here we go –

• 3 oz Bourbon
• Couple dashes Angostura bitters
• Ginger ale
• Spiral lemon peel

Pour bourbon over ice in a Collins or tall glass, add bitters, pour ginger ale to top, stir and add lemon peel.

Picked this one up from a book by Beach Bum Berry who learned the recipe from Hawaiian Bartender, Harry Yee. The drink dates to around 1957. I whipped up a batch for a backyard barbeque this past summer. Ended up burning the chicken, but thanks to this drink, my guests loved it. One of those drinks you really should be sitting down and buckled up to enjoy.

Here we go –

• 8 oz passion fruit juice
• 1 ½ Bacardi 151 Rum
• ½ oz Orange Curacao
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 oz dark Rum
• 1 oz Bourbon

Fill a large glass or Tiki Mug with crushed ice, add all the ingredients and stir well. Garnish with pineapple, mint (add an orchid and a wooden back-scratcher if handy).

This is a great cocktail to make when you want to do a little something special behind the bar but not kill yourself with ingredients. The smoky flavor of the bourbon and the lesser tang of the orange triple sec both mesh within the froth of a whipped egg white to create quite an eye opener. Drink these ‘til you’re a millionaire yourself, then pay someone to mix one for you.

Here we go –

• ¾ oz lemon juice
• 1 egg white
• ¼ oz Triple Sec
• Couple dashes grenadine
• 1 ½ oz Bourbon

Shake hard with ice in a shaker, strain into a cocktail glass.

I stumbled over this one in a recipe book published in 1934. It calls for Absinthe.   I was recently given a bottle, and this sounded like the drink to crack her for. Absinthe is legal again in the States, so if you’re curious about this once forbidden liquor, why not a night of poker with the boys and … Bunny Hugs?

Here we go –

• 1 ½ oz Gin
• 1 ½ oz Bourbon
• 1 ½ oz Absinthe

Shake with ice ‘til freezing cold. Serve up in a chilled cocktail glass. Be careful, Bunny Hugs will F you up.

Just another Old School, 1950’s-tasting cocktail that I found in a musty bar bible. I mix ‘em up a lot when I’m playing poker; don’t ask me why, probably because the drink sounds like a card game, and they’re easy to make. I suppose the name derives from the birth state of the cocktail’s main ingredient. Who knows? But I do know one thing … she sure does drink well.

Here we go –

• 2 oz Bourbon
• 3 oz Pineapple Juice

Shake in a shaker with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Badaboom … bottom’s up.